What franchises (all media) have occupied the most hours of your time on Earth?

[LibraryOgre]

Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons, by far. Palladium has an semi-honorable mention because I wrote a book for them.

[Tyrant]

For me it's probably Star Wars. Between watching the OT at home (I was born between V and VI) repeatedly growing up, watching the prequels repeatedly in the theaters and later at home (though the last time I sat through II was the last time I saw it in a theater during it's original run), and then Disney's efforts (though only 3 of those have had repeat viewings and of those only 2 outside of theaters), and then playing a list of video games for hours on end (X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Shadows of the Empire, KOTOR I and II, Battlefront I and II, and others), and reading several books along with online and real world discussions I have to imagine it's Star Wars. I know Star Trek has a lot of material, but I don't go in for most of it outside the shows and movies and I don't watch them over and over.

I would say D&D (if taken as a franchise), Battletech, or Marvel are the only real runners up. For D&D I've read at least twice if not three times as many books as Star Wars (mainly Forgotten Realms but some Dragonlance and Dark Sun and a couple Eberron), played the miniature skirmish game for quite a while, spend a lot of time buying miniatures and terrain, and played a few video games (Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 1 and 2 a few times and Neverwinter Nights 2 a few times). The least amount of time for D&D is probably playing the actual RPG. For Battletech it's playing Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4, reading about 20 books, assembling and painting miniatures, and playing the Mechwarrior Clix game. For Marvel, there's the MCU, reading comics off and an since the 90s, collecting cards, then playing a collectible card game (Overpower), then playing a collectible miniatures game (Heroclix), and watching several animated series.

I think overall Star Wars wins this but the other three are within striking distance.

[Sapphire Guard]

Final fantasy, legacy of Kain, Malazan Book of the Fallen, OOTS.

Star Wars actually doesn't make the cut until fairly recently, I picked up the PT on DVD and realised anew how awesome they were.

[Imbalance]

I personally blame the following individuals for my not being as fabulously wealthy or famous as the following individuals:

Larry Wood (HotWheels)
Shigeru Miyamota (Mario, Zelda)
H.R. Giger (Alienses)
Sid Meier (Pirates!, Civilization)
Todd McFarlane (Spawn, started my action figure addiction)
Todd Howard (The Elder Scrolls)
Jordan Weisman (Wizkids Games)
Many more

And I mean, I love Star Wars and a lot of the things mentioned by others above, but as far as the interesting things that have absorbed my time...I would say I probably have wasted as many hours playing Tetris on OG Game Boy as watching Star Wars, while the sum total of time playing various SW video games might not rival those logs. I don't watch much, I do read a good bit, but I have one of those minds that needs to constantly be working on solutions, so it's gaming for me. And I love design, so there is a great deal of my life that has been spent in objective admiration of the works of others; not just trying to solve the puzzles they've put out, but reveling in how it was put together, as if casual reverse-engineering is part of my pleasure. These people, in particular, have had some of the most interesting things to say and teach about that creative process.

And then, there's Sid Meier.

Watching all the James Bond films would take 50 hours or so. To read all of Harry Potter, maybe 60. Meier’s work scoffs at such dilettantism.

~Ed Comming [sic], The Independent

I played a lot of 8, 16, 64-bit Mario, can't get lost in Hyrule, seldom skip the die cast pegs on any store trip. Sigourney Weaver is my spirit animal, I've met the real Al Simmons, I know Vvardenfell better than my hometown, and the patent number 6899332 is easier to recall than my children's birthdays. I've never done hard drugs or boozed away an entire weekend, but I've lost whole months to Civilization. I'm talking I had to file an extension on my taxes, missed a relative's funeral, my car grew moss, nobody recognized me with a beard kind of obsession. And I still play it. I've had some iteration of Civ on every computer and nearly every console I've ever owned. It doesn't even matter if I win, but the one thing I'm sure of is if I don't get the bomb before Gandhi, it's all over.

[Lemmy]

Hmmm... That's a difficult one...

Dragon Ball, X-Men, Spider-Man, D&D and Street Fighter... Closely followed by Batman and Tekken.

[KillianHawkeye]

Definitely 100% Star Trek for me.